“China-Africa Production Capacity Cooperation — Togo Promotion Fair”, co-hosted by the CCPIT and Togo’s embassy to China and organized by CCOIC, was held in Beijing, where CCPIT Vice-President Yin Zonghua and President Faure Gnassingbe of Togo delivered keynote speeches, and over 100 Chinese businessmen from the areas of infrastructure, agriculture, energy, communication and transportation were present and interacted with the business community of Togo on production capacity cooperation.
In his remarks, CCPIT Vice-President Yin Zonghua said that China and Africa have always been a community of common destiny sharing weal and woe and a community of common interest featuring win-win cooperation. After the inception of FOCAC in 2000, China-Africa economic and trade relations have seen in-depth growth, already forming a layout of multi-layered, wide-ranging and comprehensive cooperation. The FOCAC Johannesburg Summit held at the end of 2015 started an era of win-win cooperation and common development between China and Africa.
Yin said that China and Togo are highly complementary economically, and enjoy broad prospects of cooperation. Togo is the gateway of West Africa, having geographic advantage and great potential in the development of industries of transit trade, cotton and phosphate. Togo is implementing the strategy of “Development Channel”, aimed at developing the economy and accelerating agricultural modernization, which has attracted attention of Chinese investors. A number of renowned Chinese businesses such as CACC, Huawei, ZTE and WIETC have already started investment there. Chinese businesses have strong wish to participate in infrastructure construction and industrialization process in Togo. Yin expressed the hope that Chinese businesses investing in Togo carry out more localized operation and make their due contribution to Togo’s economic and social development.
In his remarks, President Faure Gnassingbe of Togospoke highly of China’s assistance to Africa’s economic development, saying that China and Africa made a series of major decisions at the FOCAC Johannesburg Summit, helping Africa to address three bottleneck constraint against its development — lack of infrastructure, difficulty in financing and shortage of well-educated and competent human resources. China adopted the ten cooperation plans, which President Faurehighly appreciates.
Fauresaid that after constant construction and development, Togo has become one of the most stable countries in West Africa, and has conducted structural reforms in many economic fields. The country has maintained an average annual economic growth of over 5% for four consecutive years, attracting a large amount of investment in infrastructure construction from Chinese businesses. He said that Togo still has strong need for investment in infrastructure, transportation, energy, water and telecommunication, for which he welcomes continuous investment by Chinese businesses. The President promises that the government of Togo will do its best to ensure the safety of property and convenience of operation of Chinese businesses investing in Togo.
Vice-President Gu Xun of Star Times, as the representative of Chinese investors who has years of experience of investing in Africa, also shared his story of investing in Africa at the fair. He said that Star Times entered the African market in 2002, and has developed fruitful cooperation with African governments to jointly promote digitalization of broadcasting and TV services in Africa. It has now conducted TV operation in 16 African countries, providing services to 8 million customers. The company came to Togo three years ago, hoping to promote Togo’s digital process to cover the entire population and region with digital TV services through cooperation. At the same time, he said that the company also widely applied PPP model in the process, hoping to use the new way of cooperation to promote Africa’s broadcasting and TV development.
Afterwards, over 100 Chinese business representatives present had communication and discussions with the business delegation from Togo.
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